


The Right Timeline

by Rainwater_Apothecary



Category: Zero Escape (Video Games)
Genre: 999 week 2020, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, I give Seven a NAME, I'll edit this later haha, M/M, Quark's name is Clark in this you know how it be, Smut, YEAH BABYYYY, guess who's back on their bullshit, i am the italics your mother warned you about, light is gay and tragically so is aoi, mlm author, smut in chapter 2 but you can skip it without missing any plot, snakepei - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:00:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 8,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26236063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rainwater_Apothecary/pseuds/Rainwater_Apothecary
Summary: 999 week 2020.A collection of viewpoints following Light and Junpei's relationship from Nevada to beyond.Cross-posted on tumblr where my username is the same :)
Relationships: Alice/Clover Field, Kashiwabara Hazuki/Seven, Light Field/Kurashiki Aoi (one-sided), Light Field/Tenmyouji Junpei
Comments: 4
Kudos: 26





	1. 1. Ace

As the Jeep bounced and rattled its way across the desert, Junpei frantically reached for the back of Snake- Light’s headrest.

“Junpei, kindly remove yourself.”

“I would if your sister wasn’t driving us to our doom!!”

Ace - Gentarou Hongou rolled his eyes and tugged half-heartedly at his bindings. 

It was hot. Very hot. Even if the car had A/C it wouldn’t have reached the floor behind the back seat, and for some reason the Kurashikis had decided to kidnap everyone during the winter. 

When they would be wearing coats and long sleeves. 

Gentarou rolled his eyes again and settled his cheek on his shoulder. Might as well get used to this.

The car screeched to a halt as soon as he decided this.

Junpei coughed as the seatbelt caught him across the collarbone, Seven grunted, and Light wheezed.

“What..? Who?”

Gentarou looked up as best he could but still slumped back to the floor. Gray plastic was gray plastic from any angle, so why waste time and energy.

“Junpei, while I am flattered by your attentions I am going to have to ask you to _move your fucking hand_.” Junpei squeaked and from the sounds of fabric rustling it sounded like the younger man moved as best as he was able.

Gentarou blinked through a memory of the composed young man cursing a blue streak as he tried to shoot him down...

No, that was not this timeline.

Gentarou sagged into the coarse carpeting beneath his cheek.

Still, it was odd for the taller youth to use coarse language.

Ace wondered distantly where exactly Junpei’s hand had gone.


	2. 2. Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Light starts something on that princess bed so he's going to finish it. 
> 
> This entire chapter is smut, feel free to skip it! c:

Junpei’s palms smacked hard against the headboard of that damned princess bed as he whimpered around Light’s fingers. One middle finger made calloused from music-making dipped past his lover’s lips. The shorter man panted wetly and his Adam’s Apple bobbed desperately.

Pale fingers dug into tangled brown locks and _pulled_ a delightful little moan from the bare man beneath him.

Stirring his lover’s hot tongue around and around one finger was enough to get Light’s body to answer the muffled whimpers of the already quivering man below him. So he added an index finger and made _sure_ to run that hot, wet little tongue higher and higher up his fingers.

Junpei _mewled_ when the artist removed his slightly pruning fingers with an attentive pop. Junpei wasn’t exactly finished with those but he also wasn’t exactly finished with whatever it was Light was going to do to him next. Hell, he didn’t know, but he knew he was ready.

He wasn’t ready.

A body made warm from adrenaline and hard from toil shuddered under the musician’s wet fingertips.

Junpei let out a quiet whimper at the dual lines of his own spit being drawn down his fevered back, turning cold and tight beneath the other’s ministrations.

“Are you going to be good for me, Junpei?”

 _Oh_ there was no denying that _THAT_ was the voice of a man yessir that sure was. 

A gravelly, deep, husky male voice. 

The Japanese man’s dick bounced beneath him and he blushed dark at the bead of pre he felt already forming. God he’d gotten hard before for partners- of course he had what the hell? - but never this _fast_. 

He _wanted_ Light. He’d started feeling a low fire in his gut from the very first moment he saw the grey haired man, all tall and poised and full of love for his sister- 

_Fuck me_ he thought.

The man above him chuckled.

“All in due time, Junpei.”

He didn’t think the sounds Light was pulling from him were noises a grown-ass man could make for a lover but hey, new thing every day.

“That was out loud, huh? Mmn-!” The shorter man’s back arched as his lover cupped his balls. Then nipped playfully at his shoulder. Junpei laughed breathily, uncaring of who or what could hear him when Light did _that_.

“I can f- feel you smiling, a-asshole.”

“Oh?” The taller man trailed his fingers back up between ass cheeks that were at a happy medium between plump and muscular. _Soft college student ass_ , Light chuckled to himself, trailing fingers still damp along his lover’s sensitive hole.

“ _Oh_!” Everything in Junpei _jumped_ at the touch.

“Did you like that, Junpei?”

Oh _fuck_ when Light said his name all breathy and smiling at what he was doing to the shorter man.

Light guided his legs a little further forward to make his ass stick out obscenely but Junpei found he didn’t- couldn’t care. He had never been this hot for a partner. And then, with a trail of kisses down his back Light pressed a middle finger gently into him. Junpei gasped and his thighs shook.

“Too much?” Junpei felt whispered into his back and all the Japanese man could do was shake his head frantically and let out a little whimper. He felt a chuckle against his back before stars exploded behind his eyes.

“Fuck- Light- _Fuck_ that’s good, baby.”

He felt the rumble of Light’s chuckles against his back and clean up his ass - _where long fingers were sliding into him_.

With a gasp Junpei gripped the headboard and began to tremble.

Then Light added a second finger.

Junpei gasped and arched in a way that both moved his body away from his lover and pushed him deeper into those wicked fingers.

Light moved his other hand gently across Junpei’s back; secretly reverent fingers mapping and stroking until Junpei was a simpering, shaky mess beneath him.

Only then did Light move his fingers. Out a bit and then in. Out slightly and then pushed in _deep_ , drawing a bucking moan from deep within Junpei’s soul.

The number 5 player felt perfectly straight teeth bite into him again, suckling and marking along his shoulders and the side of his neck.  
He felt the warm pressure of Light’s chest along his back and all he could do was submit to the kisses and the tender bruising. He found he _wanted_ to be marked like this. Junpei _wanted_ those teeth that skimmed over his shoulder and he _wanted_ that fluffy gray hair to brush across his back while the taller man dragged bruises and gentle laughter across his back. 

He was a painting and Light was the painter. Ever the artist.

Three fingers and Junpei let out a delicious shriek - not out of pain though, Light could tell the difference. Especially when Junpei’s warm cock was in his palm and reacting to every tiny movement Light gave him.

“Light- Oh you’re so good- Come on-“ He began babbling far earlier than Light would have thought, but the taller man found he didn’t mind. Not when he was pulling such _pretty_ noises from the man below him.

He curled the fingers within Junpei and felt the hot little bead he was looking for. Junpei gasped and his hands spasmed; his cock running through the gentle hold as his body sunk onto the promise of more of THAT.

“Eager are we?” Damn the man. Junpei could only nod pleadingly.

And _still_ Light didn’t put himself inside. Junpei put those pieces together and a helpless moan left his bared throat.

“P-please, Light. P...lease-“

The man above him chuckled.

“All in due time, sweet man.”

Junpei tried rocking backwards to get more contact, wringing a strangled curse from the other man. _That_ was satisfying.

Junpei saw stars as the fingers were removed and a lazy hand pumped his cock once, twice, before stopping. The noise Junpei made was definitely not human but it _was_ needy. He felt something hot placed between his ass cheeks and put two and two together. Light’s cock was resting, lengthwise, between his ass cheeks. Junpei’s traitorous body ground up and against the deliciously hot dick, wringing a low moan from the taller man. _Good_ , Junpei thought, _serves him righ-_

Light entered him and he jerked upright, making a small noise that had his lover chuckling into his shoulder again, damn him.

Junpei panted against the firm chest behind him.

“M-more. T-ouch me m-MMN-“

Teeth bit into the meat of his shoulder and he bit off a scream. It was all so _good_.

“Talk to me, Junpei. Tell me what you want.” 

Then the damned man moved his hips and conscious thought flew out the proverbial window.  
\--  
Light shot upwards in the dark hotel room the survivors had rented for a few days. 

No one was around, at least...though he knew Clover had a copy of his key.

He shook his head. _What the FUCK Field, come on._ Sure Junpei had a nice voice and sure he was Clover’s new best friend and yeah he had lead them all to safety during the damned nonary game but... 

oh forget it. Light buried himself back in the blankets of their hotel room, bit his lip, and took himself in hand.

Would Junpei even _like_ men? Yes, yes he would. 

For the next couple of minutes he could. 

Subtle callouses caught on the hot flesh of Light’s cock, making it twitch before he even really got back into that sweet dream of his. Junpei had been so pliant and so... so _needy_. His entire body curled around himself as he felt the strong shaft and enclosed it in one hand. 

Nothing like a little shared trauma to get the pheromones going, he supposed.

He’d never touched Junpei’s lips - he shivered at the idea - but he had a good imagination and oh- Junpei’s lips would be slightly chapped from lack of care and damn if he didn’t want to wet the shorter man’s lips with his sperm. 

It was dirty and it was rushed but he decided to go for broke.

The man with the tousled hair and sure step would be seated on the floor before him, probably on the hotel carpet, not caring what had been there before. His dick got a teasing flick from his thumb and he bit down harder on his lip to muffle any of his own sounds.

Yes, his feathered breath would warm the underside of Light’s dick as he looked up at Light from the floor. Another flick sent lightening up his spine.

“Light...” His accent would betray how blissed out the bottom was becoming, because he would bottom Light had no doubt. 

He curled tighter, desperate for friction but hand steady. 

Slightly chapped lips would brush along his balls and kiss their way up to the tip - one index finger circled through his dripping pre-cum and he struggled to stay still. 

Junpei’s soft lips would part and he would lathe his tongue along the head of the very organ Light had begun to put pressure on.

Junpei had been vocal in the dream, knowing that that was what would put his blind partner over the edge - his abdominals tensed at the memory, trying their hardest to get him off before he was ready. 

He squeezed his eyes shut and focused on melding reality with his opulent fiction.

Junpei’s voice would be breathy, he’d heard breathy, and he would be so eager, so _giving_. His cock jumped at the phantom sensation of a hot mouth around it, tongue gone firm in a brave stripe up the underside of his dick. 

He knew he was going to start breathing hard and that that was the last thing he needed. The musician steadied his fevered breathes and gave himself a firm stroke. He didn’t usually find himself leaning towards vocal, but the idea of Junpei’s smart mouth giving him the pressure of his palm was a near thing. 

He felt his toes curl.

Junpei would laugh, spreading hot and then cool air over his naked dick.

“Can I kiss you?” Light’s dick surged with heat but a quick press to the base of his dick shut that down. 

He would give a chuckle of his own of course, before nodding - if Junpei had been good. The idea of Junpei being good _for him_ was intoxicating and he could feel the sheets sticking to his sweaty forehead but he wasn’t stopping now. No, the shorter man would press hot kisses to the base of Light’s dick, drawing his lower lip along behind in a hot stripe up his happy trail. 

Another pump, this time with a shaky hand.

He would bury his fingers in that sweaty hair and push his lover back down and onto his cock. 

Thighs muscular enough to take a spiral staircase at a run - Light’s leg spasmed at the thought - Junpei’s thighs would hit the carpet as he smiled. 

Light drew a light line like how his love’s smile would feel with one finger and tasted blood from where he bit down.

Junpei would need help taking dick at first, he would need his lip teased down with one of Light’s thumbs. Light would feel the warm air of Junpei’s smile on his dick once again before the wicked little man licked him from base to tip and joked about how salty it was. Sweet too, he’d try to backpedal. Light would grip his hair tighter and Junpei would chuckle and choke, forgetting where he was in the face of a bad joke.

Oh the _feeling_ of Junpei swallowing his dick. God it had been a while since he had last gotten laid but this? This was a new one on him. 

He would play with the other man’s hair before holding him still. Yes. Junpei’s eyes would widen and it would stretch the skin slightly. Another pull. Then he would push his dick as far down that cheery throat as he could, enjoying the feeling even as Junpei coughed after he moved.

Light would say some quip about Junpei not being able to shut up, and then the other man would take it as a challenge and _swallow it himself_. 

Blood roared through Light’s veins as he felt Junpei smirk around his cock and spilled across his hand to the memory of a man he hadn’t had.


	3. 3. Santa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aoi Kurashiki takes the plunge.

The elder sibling of Crash Keys looked up when his sister froze.

“Akane? Kanni?”

Her eyes were wide as he strode around the crates of supplies to her side.

“Akane, talk to me.” He’d begun to go pale himself at the way his sister was barely breathing. Her brown eyes were huge as she stared into nothing-

Into the Field.

The morphogenetic field.

“This isn’t how this was supposed to go.” Her voice wavered and she brought one thin hand up to cover her mouth.

“Junpei-kun...”

Aoi’s eyes shot wide. Sure he didn’t really know the guy from Adam but the dude had been the only person who could have saved Akane. The only Transmitter/Receiver strong enough to reach across time and space and save his baby sister.

And he’d also played the game beside Junpei, so that counted for something.

“What is it, what’s wrong?”

Akane’s wide eyes grew wet with tears.

“H-he’s changing the future, Aoi. I don’t- I can’t see how but he is.”

Strong hands landed on her shoulders as brown eyes that matched hers came down to meet her gaze.

“Want me to take a look?”

She nodded miserably.

The Receiver breathed in...then out.

He felt his baby sister gather his consciousness into herself before tucking him gently into the field.

In...and Out.

Aoi sunk into the field like a child closing their eyes to sink beneath warm waves.

Akane let go and he dipped under.

Mentally wincing, the young man made his way past the thin red lines connecting all of the social consciousness, moving through and around them like a fish in water. He sunk deeper, slipping from her fingers where they had been holding on by the very tips.

He felt the shared heartbeat of humanity. The constant emotional rivers that flowed around him stuck to the back of his teeth and threatened to get stuck in his throat.

The tsunami of chatter and thoughts and dreams made him slap incorporeal hands over unhearing ears as he sunk deeper and deeper. He wanted to gasp, to fight it, but it was what his baby sister needed, so he pressed on. The field pressed back, making his chest feel like it was going to cave in around his sternum and snap every one of his ribs.

He was kinda attached to his ribs.

His lungs too.

But he kept sinking. For Akane.

Eventually the pressure lifted and the voices faded into vague muffled sounds and he wasn’t dropping anymore. He was swimming; pushing himself towards the Receiver on the other side of the world.

His eyes widened in shock at what he found. Or rather _who_ he found.

A gray haired musician tilted his head as if listening for something. Aoi held his breath despite knowing Light _probably_ couldn’t hear him, but Light was at least as powerful a Receiver as Aoi himself, if not more.

However, Akane and Aoi had been aiming for _Junpei_ , so why...?

Aoi spiritually shook his head and took in the view before him.

The beautiful gray-haired man must have been in his late twenties by now and it looked good on him. His unseeing eyes were closed peacefully and the musician was smiling softly. From here Aoi couldn’t tell if Light’s eyelids were vaguely lilac from makeup or from sleep. The elder Kurashiki didn’t know which one he preferred.

Aoi’s heart clenched painfully.

There was a timeline out there where the two Receivers could be together, he knew it. ...He’d also come to realize that this was not this timeline. It hadn’t been this timeline since he’d had to kidnap Light and Clover to deposit them on the ship of nightmares to save his sister. For Akane. Always for Akane.

He shook his head as best as he was able and turned his head when Light did.

Light’s little smile caused Aoi’s heart to break because it wasn’t directed at him. Instead it was for...Junpei?!

What the hell?

He had found his mark at least, even if it was circuitous to a fault. But why was Light here? And why was Junpei holding grocery bags with enough food for himself, Light, and Clover?

Oh.

This was what was changing Akane’s future.

Junpei and the Fields were carving out their own sacred space in the universe and it was a quiet one where Light composed at the coffee table and Junpei bumped the musician in the hip as they joked and sorted groceries.

Aoi felt his heart- no, his very essence _shatter_. What was he supposed to tell Akane? ‘Oh, all of our planning is going down the drain because our fellow nonary game children are finally feeling safe?

He shook his head again and refocused on the task at hand.

Aoi knew the expression Light was wearing, as comfortable and casual as the thin white T-shirt that stretched across the taller man’s shoulders and chest.

The two men were in love.

They were in love and the Kurashikis were not done with Junpei yet.

Having diagnosed the reason for their future’s branching point, Aoi turned back to where he felt his sister reaching for him.

With a deep breath through shadowed lungs, the number ‘3’ player reached back.

As the siblings’ fingers interlocked Aoi knew he was making the right choice.

The Crash Keys still had work to do, and that work required Junpei.

Light could find another man to love, Akane wanted Junpei.

_And what Akane wanted, her Santa would bring her._


	4. 4. Clover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clover watches her brother and their 'friend' during movie night.

The action movie cast a red-ish tint on the sleeping faces of her best friend and her brother where they had fallen asleep during a movie Junpei had already watched and Clover had no interest in. She rolled over onto her stomach and kicked her legs lazily.

Junpei’s forehead came down to rest on her brother’s shoulder and Light moved in his sleep to accommodate their friend better.

 _Their ‘Friend’._ she rolled her eyes and clicked the remote to a different channel. If they were gonna sleep anyway, then she was watching Cutthroat Kitchen. 

Clicking off the descriptive video service as Alton began to cackle, she rolled onto her back. Her gaze returned to her older brother as her legs sprawled across the couch she had claimed for movie night. 

Light had been...well, _happy_ when Junpei had decided to stay with them after the Nonary Game. It was more than that though. Clover furrowed her brow in thought.

She smiled softly as the taller man’s head slipped down to rest on top of Junpei’s in his sleep.

Light Field had been at peace in a way he hadn’t been since before the accident that blinded him. Sure he’d been thriving in his own way, but he always seemed to be looking over his shoulder. For another car, for the Kurashikis and their knockout gas, for Hongou... there was always _something._

But not anymore. Not since Junpei had entered their lives, tripped over Light’s sheet music, re-arranged their refridgerator, woken up with nightmares that parallels the siblings’, made terrible puns and laughed at his own shitty jokes, just existed in their space in a way no one else ever had- 

He fit in with them.

Clover propped her cheek on one fist and picked at a channel button. 

Not even their parents had fit in with what made them ‘them’. It had always just been her and Light, Light and her. Even when they were kidnapped and tested on they had been _together_. 

Light had fought through that hellish 9 hours just to get back to her in time for her 9th birthday. 

She was his Transmitter, he was her Receiver. They were a rarity, and a matched set. 

Now they had another member in their little family. Junpei had held her as she screamed, had stood up to Light when he needed to. She watched as Light slowly made room for the other man in their lives, in their _family_ when not even their governesses and tutors could break his shell. 

She began to smile.

She was happy for her brother - overjoyed and giggly even - but she was still his younger sister and as such had to fuck with him.

She turned the volume up.

She turned the volume up _loud_.

Light awoke with a shout which awoke the man on his chest into sitting up and clocking the blind man in the chin.

“Sleep well~?” Clover set her chin coquettishly atop her laced fingers and swung her legs innocently.

“Yotsuba Alisha Tanaka-Field WHAT is WRONG with you?!” Her brother clutched his chin and glared daggers at her while Junpei apologized frantically to Light’s shirt.

“I was having trouble hearing the TV, Light~”

“M _hm_. Of course you were.” Gray eyes bored holes into her forhead as she batted her eyelashes at him.

Junpei’s words sunk through his jolted-awake state and while he continued to plot her demise his voice quieted.

“Junpei- Junpei you're fine. It is _my sister_ I am frustrated with.”

“B-but you’re a singer and you bruise really easily and I’m sorry for falling asleep on you when you probably don’t even-“ Junpei shut his jaw with a click and stood up, the blanket pooling onto the carpet as he made a hasty excuse and walked away.

Light raised one eyebrow at the retreating footfalls.

The blind man’s attention shot to his younger sister and in a voice as chilled as he would let it get around her grit out “You did something.”

Clover shook her head to clear it, pigtails rustling against her shoulders at the motion. Her brother crossed his arms. 

She exhaled and the worst-case scenario began to look more and more likely.

“...I think he thinks you’re straight, Light. He felt shitty about falling asleep on you.”

It was a rare day indeed that Light Seiichi Field-Tanaka was struck speechless, and a downright endangered one for his eyes to widen to child-like proportions.

Rare yes, but not extinct apparently. 

Clover watched her older brother put the pieces together and tilt his head quickly in the direction Junpei had gone.

A pillow was launched at her with deadly accuracy before her brother got to his feet to follow Junpei’s trail.

A decorative pillow to the face would be a small price to pay to get her moronic boys to actually _talk_ to one another.

In the meantime, she decided to turn up the volume just in case their chat went a little _too_ well.


	5. 5. Junpei

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Junpei takes the first steps to moving _on_ with his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Had a really bad mental health day yesterday, so I wasn't able to post this on Junpei's day. 😭

As the screen door closed Tenmyoji Junpei looked up over the pencil he had been balancing on his upper lip. The piece of stationery clattered to the counter as he smiled.

“Hey babe. Hot today?”

The blind man shook his head exasperatedly.

“No Junpei, I sweat all over my favorite shirt to make a statement.”

Junpei’s eyes trailed down his boyfriend’s torso.

“That’s not your favorite shirt, that’s one of mine- Hey!”

Light chuckled and hung up his keys. Junpei saved his report and slid off the kitchen stool.

He kissed the back of Light Field’s neck, right below the poofy ponytail he would make fun of until his dying day. 

Junpei pulled a face.

“Gross, you are all sweaty.”

“I am not in the habit of lying, Junpei.”

With a snort Junpei ran a hand down his friend’s spine and turned to return to his homework.

A strong, cold hand caught his wrist and a quick look back revealed one upraised eyebrow from the elder Field sibling. Junpei chuckled and Light’s prosthetic squeezed a touch harder before letting go.

The Japanese man laughed brightly and shook his head as he folded himself back onto the stool.

“You’re incorrigible.”

“Tell me you don’t enjoy it, Tenmyoji.”

“No can do, Field.” The shorter man clicked his laptop awake and listened to Light’s soft footfalls as he got himself something from the fridge.

“I am going to shower, Junpei.”

“Gen eds and statistics, babe. Gen eds and statistics.” Light heard his lover’s fingers clacking away at his keyboard and he leaned back against the chrome refrigerator. He rolled his eyes, sight having nothing to do with the show of attitude.

“Had I known I would be losing both my boyfriend and my favorite spot at the island I would have put up more of a fight at the prospect of continuing your education.” Junpei just chuckled and shook his head. 

Light heard his friend’s fingers hit his pencil in the rhythmic way that meant he was twirling it. He lost more writing implements to his pursuit of looking ‘cool’ than Clover or Light himself would ever let him live down.

“Maybe later, babe.”

“I will hold you to that, darling.” The pencil hit the floor and Junpei swore.

The blind man had no way of knowing if it was his term of endearment that caused the loss of a pencil, but as he had aimed for that outcome he chose to believe he achieved it.

\----

It had been a late night already by the time Junpei returned from the corner store with a coke and a declaration.

“I think I wanna go back to school.” The Field siblings looked up from where they were cheating against each other in cards.

Clover caught the way her brother’s hand tensed around his cards and she knew.

He thought Junpei was leaving them. 

Leaving him. 

No, leaving _them_.

The man in question melted into the couch above them, his eyes moving to the plaster designs of their ceiling.

“Yeah.” He rubbed the back of his neck with one gun-calloused hand. “I was actually in marketing before...” _before I was kidnapped._

Clover laid her hand face down on the carpet through force of habit and leaned onto the couch.

“Really? I guess that makes sense, you were able to get everyone on the same page back then.” _back in Nevada_.

Junpei looked at her in surprise.

“Huh.” He looked at the ceiling again. “I guess that works. I was in media marketing though, which is a little different from HR.” Clover chuckled as he lightly pushed her with his foot.

Light let out a silent breath and unfanned his own hand. He tapped it vertically against one leg as he parsed out what to say.

He didn’t want to stand in the way of Junpei bettering his life or doing something that would be genuinely good for him... but he was still shaky on English so he would most likely outsource to Japan-

“You think there’s any online stuff I could pull off? I’m not sure my English is conversation-ready enough to go to a local campus.”

Light was having trouble breathing.

Junpei would stay? He hadn’t even thought of leaving? Then he... he enjoyed being with them?

“What are you _TALKING_ about Junpei? This is FBI territory we’ve got all KINDS of different languages going all the time.”

“Would you be going back into marketing?” Light finally found his voice, thought his hands stilled as he listened now.

“Iiii don’t know. I kinda want to pick _something_ back up again because I was _good_ at my classes- Don’t even look at me like that Clover, I _was_.” The pink haired girl blew a raspberry and laughed.

“Why Junpei dearest I never implied-“

“Oh like you wouldn’t take any excuse to call me dumb.”

Light shook his head as the two people dearest to him bickered.

-*-*-*-

Junpei broke the silence of their nighttime routine once they had been lying beside one another in the dark for a couple hours.

“I’m..I’m gonna go into criminal justice.” Light felt his ribs crack around his heart at Junpei’s quiet reveal. The blind man reached over to cover one of his bedmate’s hands with his own. The other man slid his hand beneath Light’s searching one.

“Your degree... You mean your future degree, correct?” He heard Junpei nod, brown hair shushing against the pillowcase.

“Yeah. Yeah, I am.” Junpei seemed to rally himself before pulling the bedsheet closer around his own shoulder.

“You aren’t...Are you making this decision for _her_ or for _you_ , Junpei? I want you to thrive, of course, but I doubt you will reach your full potential if you are living your life for another again.” _Especially that woman_ remaining unsaid but tangibly felt.

_If you’re letting her use you again._

_If you’re giving in to the forced enmeshment._

The other man took a shaky breath and flipped his hand so their palms were pressed against one anothers’, Light’s larger hand surrounding Junpei’s darker one. It was comfortable. It was grounding. Junpei was shuddering.

“Light-“ He was choking up? Light’s brow wrinkled in his concern.

“I’m doing this because of her.” He interlocked their fingers and held on when Light tried to yank his hand away and continued. “And because of Hongou, and Santa, and Nijisaki and all those people Alice helps bring down. I can’t justify studying marketing when people- real people are out there hurting each other and I-“ Big brown eyes blinked away moisture before he continued. “- can do something, anything, about it. I can’t let something happen to kids like you and Clover all those years ago. I can’t...I can’t.” He breathed in a breath shaky with emotion and hot with unshed tears.

Light felt like the air around him existed in a vacuum. He had heard what Junpei had said, but now the absence of words roared like the wind over a mountaintop.

“I think... I understand.” Light replied quietly. Long fingers reached over to trace tear streaks down tanned cheeks and cupped them. The two men breathed shakily before Light kissed lips that tasted of salt and helplessness.

Deceptively muscular arms cradled their lover as he wept, the unfairness that had cost his best friends their innocence crashing down on Junpei like an ice floe. Warm lips met the singer’s again and again, whispering apologies that were wiped away with the reverent warm breath of the other. ‘Love’ and ‘Junpei’ and ‘it’s okay’s’ filled the space between them when their lips were not otherwise occupied.

Light thought Junpei was leaving.

Junpei wanted nothing more than to stay.

To love.

To protect.

To _grow_.

And he wanted to do it with the Field siblings. To do it for them. His self-sacrificing _fool_ of a best friend and bedmate. 

Light was in love. He was deeply and hopelessly in love with the man who rested against his collarbone when the nights got long.

\----

Following the grumbling of the college student, Light planted one foot on his boyfriend’s back. The pencil scattered further out of reach as Junpei tipped forward and collapsed onto the kitchen floor.

“Asshole.”

Light smiled into his bottled water.

“Enjoy your schoolwork, love.”

As the blind man wandered down the hall to the bathroom his heightened hearing _definitely_ picked out a ‘ _motherfucker_ ’ and he smiled, picking out another one of his man’s shirts to change into once he got out of the shower. 

Life was good, or at least that’s what his pilfered shirt said.


	6. 6. Akane Kurashiki

Akane Kurashiki awoke with a splitting headache and a bad mood, though she tried not to show either. Her brother was doing his best, and it wasn’t his fault he couldn’t see how the future fluctuated and then fizzled out before her eyes.

“What do you mean, Aoi?” She took a shaky breath in through her nose as she tried to hold it together. Her brother twisted the edge of his jacket nervously.

“I mean Yotsuba and Alice weren’t where they were supposed to be. They weren’t there.” His eyes met hers beseechingly.

She put a hand to her forehead and started to think.

“Okay we know Junpei had managed to change the immediate future, but we still have time. What’s our next move, Kanni?”

The girl shook her head and her eyes squinted in thought. Even her frustration was cute, he thought. Tenmyoji was really missing out.

He shook his head at the memory of Light’s gentle smile.

His sister’s firm voice cut through his pondering. That was her planning voice, he knew. He was so proud of her, his little tactician.

“We need to start working on the moon mission. I’ve already located Sigma Klim- Well the Sigma Klim from our time.”

Aoi nodded.

“So we work on transporting him first, since we know where he is?”

Akane had sighed and rubbed her forehead where a headache was forming. She was overworking herself again. He would have to get her to rest soon. Probably eat something, too.

The siblings had located each member of the moon mission team and squared them away as best they could. The Crashkeys organization had readied the world for the fall.  
Now they just had to locate Clover and Alice before tipping over the first domino that would lead to Armageddon.  
-

Junpei laughed over his champagne. To be fair, he hadn’t really tasted it. Not when beer was his drink of choice, but his little family had convinced him that they needed the bubbly drink to celebrate the new year so who was he to refuse? His boyfriend leaned back to rest against Junpei’s legs from his place on the floor. It warmed a place in Junpei’s chest to see the small, contented smile turn Light’s lips. He found that he wanted to kiss those lips.

“Hey, Light.” The man on the couch shifted his leg just enough to vaguely make a kicking motion against the warm back pinning his legs down.

“Yes Junpei?” The blind man tilted his head up to face his friend and lover.

He hummed as he felt Junpei’s hands cup his cheeks and warm, soft lips (He had bullied the man into wearing chapstick) eclipse his own. With a gentle motion the musician reached up his left hand to push against the back of Junpei’s head.

“Eww! Save it for midnight!!” The two men broke apart at Clover’s giggling.

Light shook his head at her and Junpei stuck out his tongue. She returned the favor before getting distracted by her girlfriend’s hand on her thigh. She giggled again but at a higher pitch and Light smirked at her mirth. That place in Junpei’s chest began to spread warmth throughout the rest of his body as the love for his friends mixed with the slight buzz he had been working on for the past two hours.

With a ‘come on Light, move.’ he slid to the ground beside the taller man and tucked his head between the other man’s shoulder and neck.

The agent closed his eyes contentedly as he felt his lover’s arm settle around his shoulders. Clover and Alice’s sweet bickering washed over him and he thought not for the last time that he was so, so grateful to have the girls here instead of at the offices where they had planned to spend the holiday. It was nice to have them around; Junpei’s little family.

As the ball began to drop on tv and the four of them started the countdown, Junpei knew that something had changed. Something had changed for the better, and he didn’t think it involved the ring in his chest pocket.

-

Akane let out a frustrated breath.

“So they weren’t at their offices like I foresaw. We...we’ll just have to wait for another branch in the flow of time.”

They were working on a tight schedule, however, and they knew their window of opportunity for kidnapping two members of the Ambidex Game had firmly shut.

“What are we gonna do, Aoi?” Akane wanted to sob into her older brother’s chest, fisting his shirt as she broke down.

But no. The time for her to be a passive member of their team had ended. This time she would correct the flow of time _herself_.


	7. 7. Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Tenmyoji-Field house brings Seigi Oyama/Seven up to date.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I gave Seven a name for this one bc he deserves a name. 
> 
> -Seigi can translate to ‘Justice’ as he was an investigator who stuck to his moral code even when it got him in trouble/danger. 
> 
> -Oyama/Ooyama means ‘Mountain’ as a nod to Junpei’s original nickname for him. :3

The large man boomed with laughter over the speakerphone that rested on the coffee table between the Field siblings and Junpei. The triad winced at the clap of sound but smiled all the same. It had been too long since they’d touched base with Seven and with Junpei finishing up his first real forensic class...

“Of COURSE I can show ya ‘round kid! It’ll be my pleasure! Heck, bring Light and Clover and we’ll make it a Field Trip!”

Junpei guffawed in a way that was as amusing as it was unflattering. Light pretended to be offended as he leveled a look in the direction of his cackling lover.

“Ya like that one Junpei? I got a load of em!”

“A load? Still can’t get laid Oyama?” Clover sniggered close enough to the speaker to send her dirty laughter over to Japan.

“HEY-! YOU SHIT.”

Light crossed his arms and shook his head before letting his features soften at the good-natured bickering between his now-old friends.

He leaned back on one palm as he listened.

It had been three years since the newest Nonary Game, and two years that him and Junpei were a couple. The concept still made his cheeks warm with a blush that Junpei and his sister would tease him about but it would be a small enough price for eternity.

He couldn’t say for sure when he’d started contemplating marriage, it could have been any number of things, tiny dominos that stacked up against one another until they reached the obvious conclusion.

Or it could be nothing. Well, not nothing. A hundred thousand little things then, must be.

The blind man heard Junpei sliding around the table before he felt his boyfriend lean his head on his shoulder.

Three years ago this coming summer was the first time Junpei had done this, this resting against Light’s shoulder. At the time it had been in a crowded vehicle behind two heavily perfumed women and practically on top of his kidnapper and long-time nightmare catalyst, but it had shocked him.

Soft, thick hair - sweaty at the roots but Light was gay and allowances had to be made for this fact - plopped onto the seam that had slowly been giving the taller man heat rash from his woolen robes. Due to having just tugged on the collar for the millionth time, his collarbone was exposed and when the exhausted number ‘5’ player’s cheek came to settle in his sleep. (the mirror image to his ‘2’ the gay little voice in his head supplied). The elder Field was hit with the urge to pet Junpei’s hair as they sat and sweated, but he couldn’t maneuver his arm enough to do so. He wanted to though.

Instead he set about mapping this moment as best he was able without the use of his hands and, of course, his eyes.

The other man’s breathing was the first thing Light fixed his superhuman senses to. They were light, cautious breaths like he wasn’t sure when he would get the chance to rest next, and a harsh enough bump in the road would have him shooting into wakefulness. Light’s treacherous heart wanted to hold the other man close and cushion his fall, to give their exhausted statistician a safe space to rest. He wanted to make sure he stayed as safe as the other man had kept Clover, returning his baby sister to him whole and making sure no man or woman was left behind in that godforsaken building. When they reached civilization Clover pulled out a wallet none of them had seen her grab.

“It was on the captain - M-musashidou. Picked it up along with his bracelet.”

Light had merely rubbed at the bridge of his nose and exhaled. He had a lot of catching up to do. But first he wanted to make sure that 1) Clover was safe and had somewhere to sleep and 2) Junpei wasn’t going out of his radius of senses any time soon.

He still wanted to touch that hair.

-

“BAHAHAHAHA! Yeah! The girls’d love that Yotsuba!” The boys quickly tuned back in.

“Girls?”

“Oyama, you getting girls over there, dude?”

Seven made a series of interesting noises as he tried to articulate his meaning without giving Clover more ammunition.

“I meant Nona, Ennea, and Hazuki-“

Clover squeaked as Junpei shot upright so fast it was only experience that got Light’s jaw out of the way in time.

“Nona and Ennea?”

“YOU CALL HER HAZUKI?!” Junpei sprung at the phone as he slammed back into Japanese so fast Light worried he had hurt himself. “DISH.”

Well.

Seven - Oyama Seigi as they later discovered - had begun seeing Hazuki Kashiwabara - Lotus - after uncovering that he had saved her twin daughters in the same heroic effort that got Light, Aoi Kurashiki, and Akane Kurashiki off that damn boat nine...ten... eleven... twelve years ago. They all owed Seigi their lives, and it was good to see the big lug making a place for himself.

“Yeah just come on down to the precinct and I’ll show ya’ around!”

After a few more jokes and friendly jibes about logistics the happy four hung up their call and leaned back.

Seigi pushed himself back from his desk and scratched at his stubble. He’d have to shave before dinner with the Kashiwabara women tonight.

Brown eyes scanned his computer screen one final time before saving and signing off.

_So, Tenmyoji Junpei was gonna become an investigator. Good for him._


	8. 8. Lotus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Junpei and Co. make it to Japan and he pulls her aside to ask some personal questions.

After much debate and just as many nightmares the Tenmyoji-Field clan made the decision to board a plane for the first time since the second Nonary Game. It wasn’t that they hadn’t had the chance to fly since then, it was more that they avoided it when possible.

It was always possible.

Especially when they stuck to California and the area around Las Vegas exclusively.

Alice was an understanding enough boss once the trio made their limits known, and she’d put them on local assignments or work with the morphogenetic field where they didn’t have to move around much.

Junpei had no idea what trauma would awaken in his body when he flew, the last time he had been knocked out and drugged the entire way. Clover hadn’t been to Japan in years but she wasn’t keen to spend multiple hours in a metal transport that she couldn’t leave.

And Light had never had a problem with claustrophobia before waking up in a coffin, but such changes are understandable.

None of them were looking forward to the how, but the trip itself seemed like a good idea. Junpei was limp with relief at the idea of being able to speak his native tongue without having to mentally translate everything, and he would be digging into any files and cases Oyama could get him access to.

Light missed the cherry blossoms, the way they smelled and the way they had a way of muffling human sound and calming emotions. Clover missed Lotus.

So the three of them debated, fought, wrote, and figured themselves into a decision and spent 11 hours (the last 2 hours were fine) onboard an airplane over the Pacific Ocean (not the Atlantic) before touching down and collapsing into Lotus and Seven’s arms.

While the boys went for a run that evening to get rid of lingering PTSD-based adrenaline and nervous energy, Clover sat down at the Kashiwabara breakfast table with a mug of hot cocoa and a mouth full of news.

+

“Kashiwabara-San c..could I a-ask you something? Something kinda personal.” The retired ‘8’ player raised an eyebrow at Junpei and planted her fists on her hips. He gulped and scrambled to find something to look at that wasn’t her and any double-entendres. This was /important dammit/.

“H-How did you know you were gonna marry your h...your husband? Ennea and Nona’s dad, that is.” Lotus had seen this question coming a mile away, but that didn’t make it any less heartwarming. Junpei shoved his hands into his pockets and became as small as possible while standing in the middle of her sunny kitchen. He tried to distract himself with the bubbling pot of spaghetti water. Work-hardened hands sprinkled a bit more salt into the boiling water before closing the table salt. He didn’t need any more piercing attention from his once-antagonist. The woman was scary okay.

Ms. Kashiwabara leaned one not-insubstantial hip against the tiled counter, crossed her arms, and picked out designs known only to herself in her kitchen ceiling.

“Well, it was like...when the ‘honeymoon’ phase of our relationship was over, while at the same time it wasn’t.” She tilted her head and put fingers free from jewelry up to her chin in thought.

“I knew that he hated doing anything when there was a hockey game going on, and he knew how messy the bathroom would be after I showered. But our love wasn’t tainted by the knowledge. We just learned each other’s rhythms.” Her eyes were shining at the memory of her loved one. “And I never wanted to let him go. I wanted to keep loving him for as long as I lived.”

She saw a lightbulb go on behind Junpei’s eyes and she covered her grin.

The invitations went out a month later.


	9. 9. Kubota

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A study on what unseeing eyes will see.

There were _so many_ things Teruaki Kubota could have seen on that ship in 2027. He could have watched June become Akane Kurashiki and _finally_ walk off that boat alive. He could have witnessed Light standing up for his sister, for Junpei throwing his consciousness through time over a stupid sudoku puzzle, seen a shark carved all to hell, enemies turn to allies, and a yellow submarine.

He could have experienced the inside of the first class cabin instead of expiring just outside its front door.

However, as a member of Cradle Pharmaceuticals there were plenty of things he would never have seen. The outside of an FBI surveillance room, for example.

He never would have experienced being freed from prison, or living in a world where he didn’t fear for his life in prison as a man who hurt children. They killed men like him in prison.

Akane Kurashiki on the other hand saw all of those things. All of the gnashing of teeth, the clangons of the incinerator, the way the survivors pooled out into the desert like the facility had sprung a leak.

She saw what the inside of the first class cabin looked like, she watched as Junpei made Snake laugh.

She bemoaned Ace’s sacrifice in the hospital room while setting up Light to sacrifice himself in the furnace for a death that could be avoided.

She saw it all, except what could have been avoided. What could have been had she just left Junpei and the others to live out their lives free from the pain and the nightmares _her decisions_ had put them through.

Tenmyoji Junpei couldn’t see all that much, but he had seen the aftermath that Akane hadn’t wished to see. He had seen the outside of an FBI surveillance room AND he had seen the inside of the first class cabin. He’d met and seen Ennea, Nona, and the other families affected by the Nonary Games. He saw injustices and he sought to put them to rights. He knew what he looked like holding a gun. He knew what Clover looked like holding a gun and he knew what her brother looked like while going undercover.

He also knew what a wedding band looked like on Light’s long, musician’s fingers and what it felt to have put it there. He now knew what it was like to rebuild his life from the ground up and hand-pick the people in that life.

He knew what it was like to let Akane Kurashiki go.

He knew what it felt like to take his son in his arms and what the mixture of pride and fear that the motion punched him in the chest with.

Junpei Tenmyoji would get to see Clover and Alice tie their own knot in a small ceremony, and he would get to watch Clark grow up in a world that was made safe for all of them by a handful of people who shared an ability the boy would never have to see.

Clark would get to experience growing up, going to school, laughter, skinned knees, owning a dog that was more crotchety than spry, and he would get to _live_.

Akane Kurashiki wouldn’t get to see is the world on fire and six billion people dead.

_Junpei Tenmyoji-Field would see to that._


End file.
